The name of my project is Deviant Desires and it is about the controversial topic of non-offending paedophiles or no-contact minor attracted persons (MAPs). I have been interested in this subject for a couple of years, but I knew it would require a substantial amount of research, so I wanted to wait until the MMP in order to begin my investigation. The project touched upon what non-offending paedophiles are, what paedophilia is, how it can be treated and how it can be prevented.
Through my work, I wanted to find out if bringing non-offending paedophiles to the light will help others like them also step forward and seek help. I tried to break the stigma around paedophilia and pay attention to primary prevention and not after the fact treatment of paedophiles. With this project I sought to show the public that in order to stop paedophilia we need to treat paedophiles before they offend.
My project is an original piece of work, as this subject almost entirely lacks coverage in the press. It would be considered hard journalism and this is why I tailored it towards The Guardian Weekly magazine, specifically their long read features section. Their readership is rather well educated and dedicated to the publication (Guardian Advertising, 2019), which was important for introducing such a controversial subject.
I pitched my idea through a PowerPoint presentation and leaflets. I found the feedback given during the pitch to be very constructive and it became the base of my work from then on. I was told to take great care with anonymity for my sources and myself when contacting them on this topic, as well as to research my case study well before I approach them. I was advised to consult with our Media Law lecturer David Mascord and discuss with him how to keep both mine and my case study’s anonymity throughout the project.
After evaluating everything that I had been told, I decided on the best ways to keep the anonymity of my source. I followed clause 14 of the Editors Code of Practice and my moral obligation to protect my sources (Ipso.co.uk, 2019).
In order to keep their anonymity, for the imagery of the project, use only re-enactment photographs taken personally by me. For the name of my case study I used the preferred by them pseudonym. I approached them without sharing my own details, through a sock account on Twitter. After a conversation where I explained my project, they agreed to proceed with the interview. I had known about their Twitter account through their affiliation with the StopItNow campaign and The Global Prevention Project (both of which I spoke to during the project).
Through social media, specifically Twitter, I managed to find a lot of my interviewees. There isn’t too big of a community of researchers on this topic, so the few ones that were researching it were specialists. I connected with them on the platform and kept the conversation with them going throughout the entire process.
As our everyday moral thinking is often biased (Friedman, 1989), especially on such controversial topics, I had another thing to consider. During the process of my work, I had to keep my impartiality no matter what turn my subject took. In order to deliver a comprehensive piece of work, I had to rise above my own personal perspective on the issue (Brewer, 2011). With taboo topics like this one, it can be hard to understand where the other side is coming from, in this case to understand why paedophiles need treatment before punishment.
As I was communicating with one of my interviewees, I had to refer back to my News Theory unit and specifically think about framing. Candice Christiansen, the interviewee in my audio element, and the founder of The Global Prevention Project, explained to me that she had some bumps in her relationship with the media previously. When she first started the project, a couple of articles came out claiming that she was trying to include non-offending paedophiles to the LGBT movement. Since than she had evidently become more hostile towards journalists, so it took me quite a while to get her to speak to me. Even after our interview, she was still concerned on how my article and project would frame her and up until the last day before the submission, I was emailing her and explaining the process of my work. Framing allows people to “locate, perceive, identify and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences defined in its
limits” (Goffman, 1974). I understood that I need to take care in the way I portray Candice in my piece.
For my video element I surveyed the public and asked them what their top three questions towards a non-offending paedophile are. I collected the most frequently asked ones, and conducted an “Interview with a non-offending paedophile”. I chose a student actor to represent the paedophile and for his answers I used information published in the virtuous paedophile website and given to me by my source. The survey helped me to realise what the public wants to know and to what level they can be empathic towards somebody with these inclinations. The video itself was crucial to the project, as it put the human element in it, and gave a sense of satisfaction to the curiosity of the audience.
In the online article I also included a survey of mine. In it I asked simple yes or no questions, trying to find out how much of the public actually knows about treatment of paedophilia. As it turned out, many of the participants weren’t aware of the existence of treatment, which gave perspective to my online article.
This project has been an incredible journey that helped me improve as a journalist, writer and person. I learned as I was going and enjoyed every moment of it. Speaking on such powerful and stigmatized topics has been my goal since I began the course. Seeing myself get to this point has been incredibly rewarding and illuminating.
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Bibliography:
Brewer, D. (2011). Impartiality in journalism. [online] International Journalists' Network. Available at: https://ijnet.org/en/story/impartiality-journalism [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].
Ipso.co.uk. (2019). Editors' Code of Practice. [online] Available at: https://www.ipso.co.uk/editors-code-of-practice/#ConfidentialSources [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].
Friedman, M. (1989). The Impracticality of Impartiality. The Journal of Philosophy, 86(11), 645-656. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/2027042 [Accessed January 8, 2020]
Guardian Advertising. (2019). Media Kit | Guardian Advertising. [online] Available at: https://advertising.theguardian.com/advertising/media-kit [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].
Goffman, E. (1974). Framing analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Boston: northeastern university press.